I'm not sure who Mr. Hall is, or what he has to do with naming conventions and misspellings, but the original name for Aluminum was "Alumium", which got changed to "Aluminum", before going through a final contortion to become "Aluminium". All three versions were created by Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist, and the process took roughly 5 years so some confusion over the "proper" spelling is understandable. The usage of Aluminum over Aluminium in the US seems largely due to the fact that Websters Dictionary stuck with his second version of the word.
A quick division $85 600 000 / 2 000 gives $42 800 per illegal immigrant. And this is the cost to the taxpayer without personnel salaries and other expenses, just what was payed to Boeing. I strongly doubt that each illegal immigrant, if not apprehended, will cost the US tax payers $42 800.
*sigh*
Chevrolet invested (just making up a number here) $120 million developing the Chevrolet Volt. So far, not a single unit has been sold! Dividing 120 million by zero tells us that the whole project has been a huge waste. Clearly the Chevy Volt is an utter failure, and should be scrapped ASAP.
I love how we can spend a shit ton of money on a ridiculous fantasy war and we wont actually fund something that actually has some merit.
And what exactly does war have to do with fusion research? You may as well complain that the US spends billions on welfare and medicaid, instead of funding fusion. At least with war you have something to show for it: we get to see shit blow up! Meanwhile welfare just sucks money out of the budget year after year, with no visible results. You've been funding it for DECADES, with no progress! In fact, it's only getting worse! It's a quagmire! Pull out now!
Obviously I'm being sarcastic, but you're being a troll so I figure we're even.
These articles are about the only things that restores my faith about humanity. That is sad.
It's funny, but in any great society, there is a rise, and a fall, no exceptions. So while the parent does sound crazy, there comes a point, as Einstein would love to tell you if he were still alive, to recognize the whole house of cards is about to collapse and to get the hell out. It WILL happen here (globally as well as we are tightly integrated economically), you just need to look for the writing on the wall (which parent believe was there).
Sure, there is a rise and fall to all societies - the only thing they vary in is how far they fall, and what causes their decline. For instance Rome disappeared from the face of the earth, their fall expedited by internal struggles, lack of interest by the citizenry, and an external threat. Meanwhile the UK simply declined to it's original status, it's downfall caused primarily by changing attitudes of it's citizenry.
The parent poster would have us believe that all societies are doomed to become some sort of insane police states, where a few powerful people control everything. In practice, such regimes occur only when the government is granted excessive power in the name of "the greater good" - something that most of the western world has embraced to a much greater extent than the US. When the power and wealth of the US does finally begin to wane, it certainly won't be because it has become an overly oppressive nation. If anything the downfall of the US will be caused either by external threats, or by a citizenry which no longer cares about values which are fundamental to the survival of any society.
I think the correct solution is to change the way we do law enforcement.
I don't mean to troll, but you sound like Obama. "We need change! I don't know what we're going to change, but we're going to change it good! We'll show that non-changed thing who's boss by changing it!"
While change can often be good, it can just as easily be bad. If you've got a clear idea as to HOW to change our law-enforcement methods then let's hear it - otherwise you're just blowing smoke.
And for christ's sakes, please stop degrading people by forcing them to take off their clothing and shoes to board an airplane. I know, it seems totally off topic, but the same idea we can't really stop the criminals, so let's treat everyone as a suspect.
Once again, what's the alternative? You seem to be a real smart sorta feller, so why don't you inform us ignorant types about how we should be ensuring the safety of our airlines?
When the government or agents of the government ask for something, the opposite is probably in your best interest.
Right! So the next time you hear a bomb technician yelling "RUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!", be sure to flip him the bird and stay exactly where you are! Fuck Da Man! Vive le Revolution!
It's got nothing to do with clairvoyance. It's quite simple: declare the value at whatever you think it's worth. That was the whole point of the post. That way you only pay the taxes you're willing to pay, and eventually you sell the house at the value you declared. If the value was too low, you have only yourself to blame. If it was too high....well, you're not going to complain if someone buys the house for "too much money", now are you?
Or am I supposed to declare a value that no person in their right mind would pay, and suck it up and pay the taxes? Even then, anyone wealthy enough (or not in their right mind) could simply seize my home if they fancied it.
And what's the problem with that? So you buy a house for $300,000, declare it's value to be $3,000,000, and have someone wealthy enough "seize it" at that price. And you're complaining? Hah! We should all be so lucky!
Creation and destruction? Nonsense. Using that mindset, every time you get a job in a new field, you're destroying your previous career. If you get married, you're destroying your bachelorhood. And if you have kids, you're destroying your life.
Well, ok, maybe that last one is true.
Anyway, what you call "the duality of capitalism / creation and destruction" I call life.
The guerrillas in Iraq seem to be giving us a good run for the money (just look at the deficit).
*sigh*
That's like looking at one of those police chases on TV, and saying "gee, that guy sure is giving the police a run for their money!". Yeah, sure, it takes effort, time, and money to defeat a determined enemy while trying to safeguard the lives of innocent bystanders. But the conclusion of such a contest is never in doubt. That criminal on TV, with 15 cruisers and a helicopter barrelling down on him, has absolutely no chance to "win", and neither does the Iraqi "insurgency". In both situations, the only way that "they" win is if "we" give up.
How much of a "run for our money" they give us is dependent entirely on how much we handicap ourselves. If the police really wanted to stop a car-chase, they could fire off an RPG and nail the fucker in the first 30 seconds. But because they like to capture criminals alive, they allow him to take them on a chase. Ditto for the US military in Iraq - they could have blasted Iraq to hell in a few weeks, and just gone home. Instead you chose to try and rebuild their nation, protect it's civilians, and fight the insurgency on their terms. The only power that the "insurgency" has is that which you chose to give them.
The real solution would bet to get people out of the "need a new car every 2 years or i wont look cool" mindset.
This isn't really a problem. Generally, if you get rid of your car after 2 years it doesn't get thrown in the garbage. Cars get sold, and re-sold, and re-sold again. They're expensive enough that nobody wants to junk one if there's any other option. The resources don't get wasted, they just change hands.
The rest of what you said is pretty accurate though. I'm not sure we could ever hit 100mpg, even if we were willing to take a hit on reliability, but yeah we could probably come close. And no, it's not worth it. As for re-using appliances, etc, you're right, our society has grown too used to simply tossing away anything we don't want any more. The constant improvement in recycling and garbage reclamation technology means that we'll probably have a solution to the problem eventualy; in the meantime, I try to encourage people as much as possible to either donate their used goods to charity, or make use of programs like the Freecycle Network. The Freecycle network is especially convenient - it costs me nothing monetarily, and almost nothing in effort, to post a message announcing the availability of whatever item I'm thinking of throwing out. Most of the time someone out there will respond, and one more piece of used equipment, clothing, or what-have-you, will find a new home instead of landing on a garbage heap.
And I'll be laughing when your car gets turned into free-floating molecules by a collision with some guy's family Van.
Seriously, that vehicle has such low mass, low cargo carrying capacity, and poor performance, that you may as well go buy yourself a scooter instead. It might be an ok vehicle for booting around the downtown core of a major metropolis (in which case you could make a decent business using them as taxi-cabs, or renting them to tourists) but you wouldn't catch me trying to take one of those death-traps on the highway.
Or, if you want a more productive way to spend an hour and a half of your life, go run head first into a wall.
Market demand killed the electric car. These conspiracy theories are no better than the claims that "big oil" is suppressing conventional engines which could get 100 miles per gallon (and violate the laws of thermodynamics, all in one stroke!).
The rest of your comment was actually quite insightful, it's just too bad you had to end it with that particular bit of lunacy.
Hey, good on ya man! It's always good to see someone who can re-analyze their beliefs in a rational manner, and admit to being wrong. I really respect that.
By the way, you probably didn't realize it, but the comment you were responding was made by phlinn, and not by me. However, his response was pretty much exactly what I would have written.
Anyway, thanks for showing me that not all users on slashdot are stubborn ignoramus':) You really cheered up my day!
And he reserves the right to violate any law he chooses, as long as the Forever War lasts. The police state is here.
You are, of course, writing from inside a high-security concentration camp, along with the other 2,000,000 political dissidents who have been arrested since The Bushitler took power. You have my sympathy. In fact, I hear that your jailers have gone so far as to start feeding you Starbucks coffee (the humanity!). I hope that this horrible, horrible Reign of Terror ends quickly. You'll be in my prayers.
Ha ha ha. If you believe that i have a bridge to sell to you.
The facts are easily checkable. US oil imports from Iraq have been almost non existent. That you seem to be unaware of this tells me only that you're easily fooled by popular rumours.
Tax payers foot the bill, the profits go to Exxon, Mobil,
Prove it. If what you say is true, there should be plenty of evidence for it. So let's see some numbers. How much Oil has Exxon Mobil pumped out of Iraq?
No, the federal government can't use the military on US soil for law enforcement purposes. Space is not US soil. Nor are all spy-sats military resources. There are other federal agencies out there, you know.
And using the second part of your argument, technically the federal government doesn't have the right to do a large chunk of the things it does. While I may agree with you on a purely intellectual level, the reality is that your argument hasn't held any real sway in a long, LONG time.
State having ALL powers not specifically allocated to the federal government, that's a start my nimble minded friend...
A start to what? The slow degradation of your reasoning abilities due to the onset of senility? What exactly do states rights have to do with the federal government taking pictures?
No it's not. The people profiting from Iraqi oil are not the people paying for the war.
This is true. The US taxpayers foot the bill, and the profits go to the Iraqi people, as well as various companies from the Netherlands, Australia, and Asia. Seems like a pretty shitty deal. The least that evil Bushitler could have done was secure the oil fields and let US companies rape them for the last 5 years. Instead he used the military to try and protect Iraqi civilians! What a dumb bastard. Now you'll NEVER get any returns on your investment!
So far I've seen people complain that this is "illegal", "unconstitutional", "evil" Teh 1984 PROLICE STATE OMG!!!" etc, etc. There was even some idiot talking about how all the recent technology has been used to conduct massive "dragnets" of the US population (I'm sure the logic goes something like this: "of course they're sending millions of people to the gulag! we have no records of any sinister arrests, so that PROVES there's something going!! OMG TEH INZIDE JOB!!"). Yet not one person has actually contributed anything in the least bit interesting or insightful.
Give your heads a shake, people. We're talking about having the federal government take pictures. How the hell is that unconstitutional? Care to point out the part of the constitution it violates? Or illegal? C'mon. The US isn't a Muslim nation - there are no laws against photography.
On the other hand, I'd absolutely love to see someone try and show that taking the federal government photographing people is somehow illegal or unconstitutional. I'm sure it would make for a superbly amusing post. I'm not holding my breath, though.
There aren't many networks or newspapers that are as controversial as Fox News... as far as actual news reporting goes... Only in Russia, China and the Middle East will you find networks that can top it.
I see you haven't been following the BBC.
There's no doubt that Fox is the most controversial network out there. As pretty much the only mainstream right-wing news organization in the western world, it's bound to ruffle some feathers. Most of the accusations against them are made by the same people who run around comparing Bush to Hitler, so it's safe to say that about 90% of the criticism can be safely ignored. When you actually look at the facts objectively, Fox is no worse for bias in their reporting than, say, the BBC, or Der Spiegel. And they're generally more accurate than the Beeb. They certainly don't go around publishing fake photos of prisoners being mistreated, or modified pictures of attacks on Palestine. Nor did they go around accusing Bush of being AWOL, which is a lie that is STILL being repeated as fact in most "liberal" circles.
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I'm not sure who Mr. Hall is, or what he has to do with naming conventions and misspellings, but the original name for Aluminum was "Alumium", which got changed to "Aluminum", before going through a final contortion to become "Aluminium". All three versions were created by Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist, and the process took roughly 5 years so some confusion over the "proper" spelling is understandable. The usage of Aluminum over Aluminium in the US seems largely due to the fact that Websters Dictionary stuck with his second version of the word.
I think "The Safety Dance" would be more appropriate here....
Chevrolet invested (just making up a number here) $120 million developing the Chevrolet Volt. So far, not a single unit has been sold! Dividing 120 million by zero tells us that the whole project has been a huge waste. Clearly the Chevy Volt is an utter failure, and should be scrapped ASAP.
Obviously I'm being sarcastic, but you're being a troll so I figure we're even.
Yes, yes it is.
The parent poster would have us believe that all societies are doomed to become some sort of insane police states, where a few powerful people control everything. In practice, such regimes occur only when the government is granted excessive power in the name of "the greater good" - something that most of the western world has embraced to a much greater extent than the US. When the power and wealth of the US does finally begin to wane, it certainly won't be because it has become an overly oppressive nation. If anything the downfall of the US will be caused either by external threats, or by a citizenry which no longer cares about values which are fundamental to the survival of any society.
While change can often be good, it can just as easily be bad. If you've got a clear idea as to HOW to change our law-enforcement methods then let's hear it - otherwise you're just blowing smoke.
Once again, what's the alternative? You seem to be a real smart sorta feller, so why don't you inform us ignorant types about how we should be ensuring the safety of our airlines?
Well that's a load of crap. One way or another, everything's for sale.
Marriage would become much simpler?
It's got nothing to do with clairvoyance. It's quite simple: declare the value at whatever you think it's worth. That was the whole point of the post. That way you only pay the taxes you're willing to pay, and eventually you sell the house at the value you declared. If the value was too low, you have only yourself to blame. If it was too high....well, you're not going to complain if someone buys the house for "too much money", now are you?
I still don't see what your complaint is.
Creation and destruction? Nonsense. Using that mindset, every time you get a job in a new field, you're destroying your previous career. If you get married, you're destroying your bachelorhood. And if you have kids, you're destroying your life.
Well, ok, maybe that last one is true.
Anyway, what you call "the duality of capitalism / creation and destruction" I call life .
Congratulations on spectacularly missing the point.
That's like looking at one of those police chases on TV, and saying "gee, that guy sure is giving the police a run for their money!". Yeah, sure, it takes effort, time, and money to defeat a determined enemy while trying to safeguard the lives of innocent bystanders. But the conclusion of such a contest is never in doubt. That criminal on TV, with 15 cruisers and a helicopter barrelling down on him, has absolutely no chance to "win", and neither does the Iraqi "insurgency". In both situations, the only way that "they" win is if "we" give up.
How much of a "run for our money" they give us is dependent entirely on how much we handicap ourselves. If the police really wanted to stop a car-chase, they could fire off an RPG and nail the fucker in the first 30 seconds. But because they like to capture criminals alive, they allow him to take them on a chase. Ditto for the US military in Iraq - they could have blasted Iraq to hell in a few weeks, and just gone home. Instead you chose to try and rebuild their nation, protect it's civilians, and fight the insurgency on their terms. The only power that the "insurgency" has is that which you chose to give them.
The rest of what you said is pretty accurate though. I'm not sure we could ever hit 100mpg, even if we were willing to take a hit on reliability, but yeah we could probably come close. And no, it's not worth it. As for re-using appliances, etc, you're right, our society has grown too used to simply tossing away anything we don't want any more. The constant improvement in recycling and garbage reclamation technology means that we'll probably have a solution to the problem eventualy; in the meantime, I try to encourage people as much as possible to either donate their used goods to charity, or make use of programs like the Freecycle Network. The Freecycle network is especially convenient - it costs me nothing monetarily, and almost nothing in effort, to post a message announcing the availability of whatever item I'm thinking of throwing out. Most of the time someone out there will respond, and one more piece of used equipment, clothing, or what-have-you, will find a new home instead of landing on a garbage heap.
And I'll be laughing when your car gets turned into free-floating molecules by a collision with some guy's family Van.
Seriously, that vehicle has such low mass, low cargo carrying capacity, and poor performance, that you may as well go buy yourself a scooter instead. It might be an ok vehicle for booting around the downtown core of a major metropolis (in which case you could make a decent business using them as taxi-cabs, or renting them to tourists) but you wouldn't catch me trying to take one of those death-traps on the highway.
Market demand killed the electric car. These conspiracy theories are no better than the claims that "big oil" is suppressing conventional engines which could get 100 miles per gallon (and violate the laws of thermodynamics, all in one stroke!).
The rest of your comment was actually quite insightful, it's just too bad you had to end it with that particular bit of lunacy.
Hey, good on ya man! It's always good to see someone who can re-analyze their beliefs in a rational manner, and admit to being wrong. I really respect that.
:) You really cheered up my day!
By the way, you probably didn't realize it, but the comment you were responding was made by phlinn, and not by me. However, his response was pretty much exactly what I would have written.
Anyway, thanks for showing me that not all users on slashdot are stubborn ignoramus'
Prove it. If what you say is true, there should be plenty of evidence for it. So let's see some numbers. How much Oil has Exxon Mobil pumped out of Iraq?
No, the federal government can't use the military on US soil for law enforcement purposes. Space is not US soil. Nor are all spy-sats military resources. There are other federal agencies out there, you know.
And using the second part of your argument, technically the federal government doesn't have the right to do a large chunk of the things it does. While I may agree with you on a purely intellectual level, the reality is that your argument hasn't held any real sway in a long, LONG time.
Please, think before posting, ok?
So far I've seen people complain that this is "illegal", "unconstitutional", "evil" Teh 1984 PROLICE STATE OMG!!!" etc, etc. There was even some idiot talking about how all the recent technology has been used to conduct massive "dragnets" of the US population (I'm sure the logic goes something like this: "of course they're sending millions of people to the gulag! we have no records of any sinister arrests, so that PROVES there's something going!! OMG TEH INZIDE JOB!!"). Yet not one person has actually contributed anything in the least bit interesting or insightful.
Give your heads a shake, people. We're talking about having the federal government take pictures. How the hell is that unconstitutional? Care to point out the part of the constitution it violates? Or illegal? C'mon. The US isn't a Muslim nation - there are no laws against photography.
On the other hand, I'd absolutely love to see someone try and show that taking the federal government photographing people is somehow illegal or unconstitutional. I'm sure it would make for a superbly amusing post. I'm not holding my breath, though.
There's no doubt that Fox is the most controversial network out there. As pretty much the only mainstream right-wing news organization in the western world, it's bound to ruffle some feathers. Most of the accusations against them are made by the same people who run around comparing Bush to Hitler, so it's safe to say that about 90% of the criticism can be safely ignored. When you actually look at the facts objectively, Fox is no worse for bias in their reporting than, say, the BBC, or Der Spiegel. And they're generally more accurate than the Beeb. They certainly don't go around publishing fake photos of prisoners being mistreated, or modified pictures of attacks on Palestine. Nor did they go around accusing Bush of being AWOL, which is a lie that is STILL being repeated as fact in most "liberal" circles.
Hrm. I think I found a video of their basic training.